Looking at the way Rockets are playing right now Stone needs to be extra careful making trades. Real life is different from NBA 2K, the last thing you wanna do is ruin the chemistry and potential of this Rockets squad. Look at Minnesota. They could be the best team in the West right now if their GM didnt trade for Rudy Gobert. Moreover, they had to trade Kat because Gobert made too much money and put them in the 2nd apron. Or Clippers, who traded everything for Paul George only to find out SGA was better than Paul george. Similarly, I wouldnt write off any of the core 7 RN, they could be a star in a couple of years like Wiggins. Wiggins looked like a bust before he went to GSW, then he matured and broke out at age 27. The same thing could be true with our guys. If I was Stone the only trades I'd do are bench upgrades and/or straight upgrade to Jalen or FVV. We need a better big off the bench and we need a consistent shooter. For a big, Clint Capela comes to mind. We have a relationship with Atlanta and they owe us for sending us a lemon and taking our 2nd rounder. For a bench upgrade, I'd love Duncan Robinson. Capela is blocking dev time for Onyeka Okungwu and DR isnt seeing much playtime in Heat. We can prob get those guys using expirings/non guaranteed contracts and our (non PHX) picks and swaps aka Steven Adams, Jock Landale and Jeff Green. I'd try to hold on to both Holiday and Tate they are valuable both for chemistry, cheapness and versatility. Like the poster above me said, the straight upgrade to Jalen is Devin Booker. Booker isnt good at defense unlike Green but he makes up for it by being an elite scorer. But it all depends on the price and how Jalen plays this season IMO. He is alternating between bad games and 30 burgers, at only age 22 you can't ignore the potential there.
I think he'll bounce back, the circumstances he's in are pretty rough. I don't see him as a true #1 option though, I agree on that. I think he's more of a #2, or perhaps #1B kind of guy.
1B making the supermax is a yikes. Also knowing how Morey operates we shouldnt do this trade. He asked for like 5 picks and 2 good players for Ben Simmons.
Thing with the supermax is that it still underpays star players relative to their worth to their teams. We're going to keep seeing young guys who are clearly the #2 on their teams like Jaylen Brown and Tyrese Maxey get these deals, because the alternative is for them to walk away, and young-ish top 20 players don't grow on trees. Think about it this way, there is cap space in the league for at least 30 supermax deals (really, probably up to 60 of them depending on how teams want to manage their cap situations). So if you're getting, say, the 15th-best player in the league for that money, you're already doing well. In terms of the Rockets, I'm not sure I see a true #1 out there that fits our time frame, given how young our core is. The guys you look at around the league who might make sense are very much not available. We're not getting a shot at trading for Luka or Tatum or Edwards or anybody like that anytime soon. Maybe that means we should just wait and be patient and see if one of those guys demands a trade in a year or three. But it is harder to not take an opportunity to improve when you're on the bubble of true contender status and are one of the best regular season teams. I did not expect that to be the case right now, but at least for the moment, it is. So, if you can get a guy like Maxey who may not be a true #1 but is at least kinda-sorta close, or Fox, or whatever, I think you at least consider it. There's probably a limit on the price you're willing to pay, you're not going to want to give up every available FRP and like 1-2 young members of the core for a guy like that. But still I think if a deal like that appears, it's something where you should be willing to push in some chips for it. (Unless we fall off a cliff and end up closer to .500 whenever that trade becomes available.)
Regarding the Booker idea, I've warmed up to it and I think I'd do it if he were available at the trade deadline, assuming we're still playing really well. He's a little older than I'd like though so every year that we have to wait the idea of trading for him becomes less exciting. He'd very much be a "start contending for a title right now and hope to win one in the next 4-5 years" kind of play. And the thing about Booker is that he plays for the Suns. They are known around the league to be highly averse to a traditional rebuild. They're like the Morey Rockets in that sense, they aren't willing to be bad. They're much more likely to re-tool than tear it all down and start over. And you'd think they would want to build around Booker and try to trade KD or Beal instead. So, knowing how their organization thinks, I doubt they will trade him unless he demands to be moved. I'm a bit skeptical he'll actually be available at this trade deadline or even next offseason.
They are trapped if that is their true mentality. Beal has a negative trade value. Durant is great at the moment. But often injured and he won’t be great soon at some point. And is probably worth more to the Suns at this point. As of right now even with an extremely hot start they are at the 13th spot in the draft. That swap for the rockets and the future picks owed to them are getting more valuable by the day. If the Rockets keep that pick and it falls 10-15 I hope they can find and older player like Dalton knecht Zach Day Vasquez type player. Have him on a rookie contract from 23-27 and have a nice controlled cost role player.
This type of posts still floor me. Brooks "has" to go? How is Brooks not a consistent fan favorite? Why does he have so many detractors? He does all the dirty work, is a part of our best lineups, has the best on off stats on the team, and, frankly, just exudes H-Town swag. He doesn't "have" to go. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually resign him.
If we trade for Fox it would be FVV we give up to upgrade the pg position. Fox and Green would be a dynamic backcourt and we would play faster which suits Green more. Of course you wouldn’t want an FVV/Fox backcourt so i’m not sure why many keep saying that.
This is my thought process too. My one concern is a Fox / Green / Amen / Sengun lineup is pretty rough from a 3 pt shooting standpoint, even if you could add a .4 shooter. That is, unless Green can develop into a .38+ shooter or so.
The Suns can be opposed to a tradional rebuild all they want. KD's value in a trade isn't close to what they gave up for him. I'd guess they could get 2 FRPs for him, maybe, which they could try to flip into some depth. Beal has negative trade value. Not sure anyone on thier team besides Booker and Durant are worth a FRP or more. Their draft capital is basically 25th pick or worse in 2026, 2028, and 2030, and a potential good pick in their own 2031 pick. Without rebuillding, their 2032 will be frozen at the 30th pick, and at best their 2033 pick gets frozen. They won't have more than the MLE and BAE until 27-28. I just don't see an avenue to retool as they just don't have the trade assets and won't have the cap space. Basically, their choices are run with this team that might not make the playoffs this season or rebuild. They are a bad KD injury from having their playoff chances wiped away with little draft capital. I think some team is going to burned bad for trading too much for a star. Brooklyn got bailed out by the Knicks and Suns along with the Rockets helping them in exchange for some potentially juicy Suns picks.
Valid point. I just don’t believe there is one guy that is changing our 3pt shooting by himself anyway. There are a couple moves that would need to be made to bring in more shooting and scoring period. So my thought process is upgrade at pg with Fox and make some other smaller moves to bring in shooting. It can be done with the assets and picks we have available. Also will be free agents we can possibly bring in to sure that up as well.
Why wouldn't the Rockets want a FVV/Fox backcourt? FVV is short, but he's thick enough to guard SGs. One of his best qualities is that he's usually not easy for big guys to abuse on a switch (Kuminga being a notable exception this season). Offensively, I think FVV would play very well with Fox's rim pressure. Having both Fox and FVV would mean the huge drop in offense when FVV leaves the game would likely not happen as one of Fox and FVV would be on the court.
That’s not an ideal fit in my opinion. FVV is getting older and I would be looking to pair a young backcourt of Fox/Green together for many years to come. I see your point though and maybe it could work with how you laid it out…just not what I envisioned. I think Green would benefit from Fox’s rim pressure, same as FVV if not more. Them two in transition would be crazy.
I mean somebody on the team is currently shooting 38.6% on 3's as a starter Dillon. Dillon Brooks... lol If we were to trade FVV + Cam + picks for Fox (& Lyles), I would also try to get somebody like Paul Reed (stated why previously) or Time Lord (& Bones). Swipa - Bones / Holiday Green - Amen - R33d Brooks - Tari - McVeigh Bari - Lyles - Uncle Jeff Sengun - Reed / Time Lord - Jock
FVV is flat out better now and I think will be a Rocket for 2-3 years after this one. Adding Fox likely put the Rockets solidly as a Top 3 seed in the West with FVV. Also, keeping FVV does not mean Green has to be traded if one thinks he still has a path to being great more frequently. I'm not as optimistic on Green. Keeping FVV, Brooks, Amen, Eason, JSJ, and Sengun should be th priority, IMO. Though between expirings, Reed, Cam, and draft capital, the Rockets likely have a better offer than anyone unless OKC really throws down.
Forgive if someone else mentioned this in the posts I haven't read yet, but didn't Maxey have something of a hammy issue? Although he's mostly played. Parenthetically: (But, yeah, Daryl, good luck trading Maxey's contract when you get sick of its presence on the books.)
I like Brooks, I just like Amen and Tari more. Nothing against Brooks at all, I think we should get good value for him. It's literally just a coincidence we have 2 better SF's. Unless he keeps shooting 40%, then he's earned the spot.
In that case just move Amen to point and let FVV be the spot up shooter. Why give up assets for Fox who does nothing to solve our biggest problem which is outside shooting and is not a good defensive player, when you already have an elite defensive player that can also get to the hoop and is a better passer. We don't need to trade for a mediocre shooting pg. We need a SG that can shoot. Maybe it's Jalen, maybe it's FVV or maybe it's a true star we trade for down the line.
All right, here's a weird, probably controversial one. Kind of a lateral move for all three teams type of deal. My thinking is, there have been a lot of rumors that Miami wants to move on from the Jimmy era, but Jimmy doesn't really fit our timeline anymore. Denver is getting roasted constantly for "wasting Jokic's prime" and they've got to be getting a little bit desperate to make a move. So here's what I came up with, sans whatever picks would need to fly around to grease the wheels: So my thinking behind this is--we get a significant upgrade on offense by swapping Brooks for MPJ, at the cost of some defense. We replace Jalen with Christian Braun, who is less dynamic on the ball but vastly more efficient and probably a better defensive player, which makes up for some of the loss of Dillon. Miami gets to move on from Jimmy and gets players who fit the timeline of Bam, Herro, etc better. (They may also need some picks to make it worth their while, but I haven't bothered trying to figure out how many.) Denver shakes things up, gets some bad money off the books (Saric and Nnaji), adds a two-way star to complement Jokic and Murray better than MPJ, and gets a bit more bench depth by adding Holiday and Whitmore. How you feel about all of this probably depends on how you feel about MPJ, Brooks, and Green who are all pretty controversial 'round here.
Fox is a better shooter than Amen. Fox is also a much better PG than Amen. Fox at PG would work very well with Amen while Amen at PG does not have option of playing with Amen at SG, SF, or PF.
